The Beginner’s Guide to Text-based Web Games
What are text based mmorpg games and what makes them so darn popular?
Students started playing text-based rpg games many years ago on college networks over extremely poor web connections.
Most text based mmorpg games have little or no graphics. Similar to original RPGs, played with pencil, paper and dice, they rely on random statistics, numbers and words. With low graphics, the game will not be hindered by a slow web connection, and can handle a huge number of users, often known as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG ). Unlike graphical games, text-based RPGs will run on machines with much lower system requirements, enabling them to be played on pretty much any computer connected to the Internet. People also play them on handheld devices and mobile phones.
All text-based RPGs worth their salt will have the power to create an in-game character, increase their status, equipment, weaponary, trade items etc, and complete tasks in the game. Over the past 3 years, the landscape has changed and with so much competition, players expectations are much, much higher and developing a successful text-based browser game involves time, effort and constant feature updates. The best text RPGs are addictive and keep players loyal for many months or years.
Facebook saw the appeal in text-based games and has recently launched Farmville, Mafia Wars and Frontierville, created by Zynga. Although much more graphical than traditional text-based RPGs, the game play is really no different to most other text-based games.
Why not start with Torn, Farmville, Frontierville or many others, if you fancy giving text-based MMORPGs a try.